real time ladders seems highly illogical.. if your not logged in every 6 hours when games are made, then your opponent could force-join you 5 minutes later, *presuming 5 minute games* then you'd autoboot 5 minutes later.. Imho a RT ladder would be more of a booting contest then anything else, the amount of legitimate games would be a vast minority. there would have to be measures put into place to ensure that both players are active at the same time, besides the join that is currently in place, and force-join would have to be turned off, which would make the Doushi-stall infinitely possible if you so wished to remain in your position

I think there is a way it could work though, given that there were a large enough pool of players available. It would work by players choosing when to play a real time ladder game, then the ladder would match you up with someone else in your range that wanted to play one too. But I think that right now there arn't enough players to make this happen, because there wouldn't be someone else that was within your playing range very often that wanted to play.

What if once the match was made, players could agree on a time to play, then meet on that day for the match, and if someone doesn't show then the win is defaulted to the other player? I guess the other option would be that match-ups aren't decided by how the played is ranked, but completely random, and your elo or stat gain (not sure what it is called on this site) would increase/decrease according to the difference in rating. For example if a very high rated player wins against a very low rated player, they gain a very small amount of elo/stats, but if the low rated player wins, they gain a large amount. I play other online games and that is how the ladders usually work

I'd have to agree on the real time ladders... it'd definitely encourage people to become members because they don't have to wait a day for every move. IMO alot of people don't like the idea of waiting forever for the outcome of the game.

What if you had to "turn on" your desire to play in a 5min ladder. So like, if you knew you had an hour or so available to play, you could switch onto the 5min ladder, and join the pool of other players looking for 5min ladder games. Then you could get matched up, or not if no one else was currently looking.

There could be a minimum of being "online" in the pool for 6 hours a week, or 8, 10, 12 etc. Or some sort of number, thus preventing people from stalling the ladder.

The ladder would be messed up (cause no doubt lots would be booted from their inability to manage games), but I think people would understand that and enjoy it anyways.

Have to say, I'm not enjoying the waiting two or three days for people to actually join/make their territory picks. Boring when half my games are being stalled, and the other half haven't even joined xD

Once a setup has been made, both players can agree on a time, and since we're all international here I'm sure timezones could be fixed, for instance don't setup players in real-time who have a 12 hour time-zone difference, because that's too much.

Both players can then have fun setting up the time, for instance:

Player A chooses 8p.m. Eastern Time ( Toronto )
Player B declines and chooses 9p.m. Eastern Time ( Toronto )
Player A accepts the 9 p.m. Eastern Time ( Toronto ) which would be 6p.m. Pacific Time ( Vancouver )

For the first turn an exception could be made of 20min, after that it would be 5 min direct boot and 10min auto.

or a method within the current 1v1 ladder, in which you could set up a real time game if you and the opponent you're inviting currently have an available slot. Of course the invited person has the option to decline, in case you haven't enough time on hand.

I also enjoy really quick games. I tend to make my moves within the first minute of seeing a turn, so all this waiting 2-3 days for my opponent gets a little stale ^_^

I could see Toggling RT ladder on and off as an addition to the current ladder as a feasible option.. however allowing you to select who you play against would cause a loophole to increase your rating, presuming you're willing to buy two accounts..

Yeah, but randy doesn't allow same ip accounts to play against one another. To my knowledge there aren't any proxy services/programs such as tor that support games like this. But I suppose there's always a possibility xD

would it be possible to have a real time 1v1 ladder auto game? Like the current strategic 1v1 auto that's in the lobby, cept this one is only visible(therefore playable) to ladder players with an open game slot?

Like say if I and heyheuhei both had an open 1v1 ladder seat, we could both join and then have a 5min turn game. This wouldn't exactly require premeditation as it would work the same as a normal auto 1v1. Someone joins first, which may intrigue the interest of someone else to join it, if they have the time on hand.